


Perks of the Job

by m122y



Category: Pocket Monsters: Sun & Moon | Pokemon Sun & Moon Versions
Genre: had the intense need to illustrate some headcanons, no i didnt edit this why do you ask, welcome to super drabble town
Language: English
Status: Completed
Published: 2018-07-26
Updated: 2018-07-26
Packaged: 2019-06-16 12:46:55
Rating: General Audiences
Warnings: No Archive Warnings Apply
Chapters: 1
Words: 1,516
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/15437367
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/m122y/pseuds/m122y
Summary: it's worker's compensation for being forced into a position of guidance and spiritual leadership with no backsies





	Perks of the Job

Hala can feel the weather in his bones. Other older folk will claim the same, claim the ache of their joints signals as surge of wind on the horizon, but the accuracy of his predictions could beat out a satellite. Long before a thunderhead makes itself known, all of Iki Town will have battened its shutters. 

Visitors to the island’s festivals marvel at the good luck of their celebration—not once in a decade has the sky broken to rain over their parade—but it’s never luck. Hala is very good at planning. 

Even when the sky is as blue as a Mantyke’s underbelly, fishermen jokingly ask him about the coming storm. How far are the clouds from shore? The rains, will they be bad?

He smiles and laughs. “The downpour is sweeping the west coast of Ula’ula, my friends. We won’t see it from here.” And he’s right. They don’t see so much as a cottony wisp. 

Today, as he returns home, the sun eclipsed by the ocean and the sky drawing dark, Hau rushes from the door to hug him. Just as soon as Hau has thrown his arms around his grandfather, there’s a minute white snap. He jerks back. 

“Ow!” 

“Sorry.” Hala had a mysterious habit of picking up a static charge no matter where he went, and it always bothered him when he’d shock someone by accident. “It’s not your fault, but be more careful next time.” 

“I know, but I just wanted—“ Hau’s eyes light up, and he turns on a dime to sprint back into the house. “Hold on a second!” 

Hala follows him but barely makes it past the doorway before Hau leaps forward and pokes a finger at his stomach. There’s a snap, and Hau cackles. “Ha!” 

“Gah!” Hala takes a knee, dramatically gripping his middle as if he’d been run through by an imaginary sword. “You got me!” 

Hau laughs more and runs off to rub his socks on the carpet again. 

+++

Olivia hasn’t suffered so much as a sunburn for all of three years. Her throat is never sore, her feet never blister, and any cut or scratch that mars her skin stitches itself up overnight. The fever that sweeps through Konikoni passes her by. Even the roiling seasickness of her childhood has disappeared. 

She credits it all to her meticulous lifestyle, but deep down she knows it’s a supernatural blessing. She’s only a little chuffed that she isn’t able to take full credit for her slim physique. 

Word gets around that her perfect health leaks into her gemstones, infects her jewelry. Those that wear her amethyst bracelets are revitalized, their strength and stamina restored. Her moonstones quell mood swings. Her rose quartz heals the heart. 

She sells these pieces to believing tourists. Those downcast locals who need a good luck charm are given them as gifts. 

Today, she lounges with her feet up, a hand of cards pinched between her thumb and forefinger. The three Akala trial captains are gathered around the table at the back of Mallow’s family restaurant, a pile of cards thrown onto the turntable and cups of tea set before each player. 

Kiawe is staring with a desperate intensity at his hand. 

“Play already,” Mallow whines. 

“Don’t rush me just because your hand isn’t high enough to beat a jack.” Finally, he commits and drops a pair of queens. 

Without so much as a second thought, Olivia pinches a pair of aces and sets them daintily at the top of the pile. 

“What!” Kiawe all but howls. “You saved those this whole time?”

“Does anyone have anything high enough to beat it?” is the only response Olivia gives. 

No one can cough up a higher play, and so she examines her hand to see what ammunition is available to start another round. Lana, who sits to her left and has kept quiet, gives an annoyed grunt when Olivia sets down a six, forcing her to retaliate with a nine despite the massive wad of cards remaining in her hand. 

The turns make their way around the table. When Olivia is the first to clear her hand, declaring her the victor, Mallow mumbles into her tea cup. “You have to be cheating. That’s the sixth round you’ve won.”

“It’s nothing but intuition,” Olivia says as she gathers up the cards and sets to shuffling. 

“Whatever you say, you damn mind reader.” 

+++

Nanu doesn’t keep houseplants. If anyone asks, he’ll tell them it’s too much work, and if they know him well enough they’ll chuckle. But he’s being serious. 

He’d been gifted a miniature orange tree once, and it was shoved into a corner of the police station where the Meowth would toy at the branches. Soon, it’s leaves were brushing the walls. Then the ceiling. It grew at a furious pace, but not so fast that Nanu couldn’t ignore it. The afternoon when he finally wrangled it out the door was filled with swearing and regret as the topmost branches punched a hole in the ceiling plaster. 

The grass outside the station is an untameable wilderness. If he lays down somewhere to take a nap, by the time he gets up the surrounding weeds will have ballooned by a good half a foot. He eyes flower shops with morbid curiosity but gives them a wide berth out of fear. 

For that matter, the plants don’t even have to be rooted. He’s seen bruises on peaches fade as soon as he picks them up. 

Today, he’s directed by Acerola to a hidden alcove in the hills of Ula’ula Meadow. There, he finds a young trainer knelt over a fresh-dug grave no more than a meter long, loose soil packed to obscure the body. 

He clears his throat to announce his arrival. “Would you mind a little company?” 

The trainer turns, hiccupping, her face streaked with tears. 

“I’m sorry this happened to you,” he says, before bluntly switching to a different topic. “Where do you come from?” 

He struggles to sound empathetic, stumbles over awkward questions and into depressing dead ends, but together they steer the conversation as far away from the meadow grave as possible, looping it around the islands and back. 

Slowly, the trainer recovers, calmed by a power Nanu knows better than to believe is his own. She even laughs, once, though the tail end of it sticks in her throat. 

When they rise to leave the meadow, a thin coat of moss has crawled over the grave. Tiny buds peek from the verdant carpet, and juvenile red ginger and poinciana sprout in place of a headstone. It smells like new growth, spring. 

+++

Hapu’s best memories of her grandfather all have the sea as a backdrop. He was a man that lived his life as if his heart were lost at sea, and he spent his years trying to find it in the curl of the waves and the pull of the tide. 

Every sailor in Seafolk Village coveted his presence on their ships. No matter which way the wind blew that day, if his feet graced their deck, the current would favour them. They’d carve the ocean like a blade. 

He’d lead a six-year-old Hapu to the bow of the boat. She’d squeal and giggle as the water rushed by, schools of Wishiwashi and Remoraid fluttering in swarms of silver beneath the surface. 

Now, the mantle of good luck charm has passed onto her shoulders. 

Today, she spots a group of children swimming off the far end of a dock in the village, shadowed by the roof of a houseboat fashioned into the shape of a Steelix. The entire group is panting, winded, and as she walks over they haul themselves from the water on weary arms. 

“What’s going on?” she asks. 

One of the eldest boys pipes up. “My Z-Ring. I kicked it off the edge by accident and it sank to the bottom, but it’s way too far down to reach.” 

“We’ll see about that.” She kicks off her boots and strips down to her shorts and t-shirt, leaving her coveralls and bonnet strewn across the wooden planks. With a running start, she dives into the sea. 

She opens her eyes and the water is clear as crystal. No salt stings her. She follows the barnacle-encrusted dock post until it meets with the ocean floor: a knotted crag of pockmarked rock and coral. Skrelp cling to sparse strands of seaweed. Luvdisc dart out of her way. 

Only now do her lungs nudge at her, wanting for oxygen, but she focuses on her search. She casts about, hoping to spot something shining. 

The Z-Ring is nestled among a crop of coral, and she swims over and snatches it up. She pushes off the bottom and rockets to the surface. The sunlight-dappled surface dominates her vision. The warped faces of the children watch her from above. 

Her lungs kick in pain. Just as light-headedness sets in, a rush sweeps from below, a current buoying her skyward. She breaks the surface with the Z-Ring held aloft in victory. The children cheer.


End file.
